Joe Johnston

As a kid, I was a huge Honey, I Shrunk The Kids fan. Now that I think about it, it might have been the first kids-in-a-crazy-situation movie that I saw and loved. I’d go on to fall for movies like Goonies, The Gate, Monster Squad and Cloak & Dagger, but it may have all started with this film (or maybe it was E.T.).

The movie stars Rick Moranis as hapless inventor Wayne Szalinski who just can’t figure out how to make his shrinking ray work. Much to everyone’s surprise, a stray baseball accidentally hit through the attic window by one of the next door neighbors leads to both Szalinski kids — Amy (Amy O’Neill) and Nick (Robert Oliveri) — getting shrunk along with the two neighbor boys Little Russ (Thomas Wilson Brown) and Ron (Jared Rushton). Smaller than ants, they wind up having to struggle to get across the backyard into the house and back in front of the shrink ray in hopes that Wayne can fix them. Continue reading →